Flare-Fork: A pedagogy for expanding problem and solution space for design problem solving

Abstract

In design, fixation is a recurring problem with novices where they choose the first solution that they think of for a given problem rather than explore a range of possible solutions. Fixation can result in barriers in design process, restricted search and premature commitment to solutions that may be sub-optimal. Among undergraduate engineering students, design fixation is due to limited prior conceptual knowledge, insufficient knowledge of design heuristics, and disconnected and evolving knowledge base, skills and strategies. One mechanism to overcome design fixation is expansion of problem and solution space where learners explore a variety of aspects related to the design problem such as constraints, assumptions, concepts and principles, before deciding on the solution to be followed. To be able to expand problem and solution space, novice designers require support.

We have devised a pedagogical strategy flare-fork which scaffolds students’ problem space and solution space expansion in the flare phase and generation of multiple constraint optimized designs in the fork phase. Flare-fork is a systematic process that supports students to build on their opportunistic ideas to expand design boundaries and subsequently identify trade-offs to generate a variety of solutions tailored to fulfill a combination of constraints and assumptions. The pedagogy brings together design strategies, tools and practices such as rapid ideation, shared visual representation, categorization and techniques to restructure thinking patterns in a collaborative environment. In this paper, we first describe the conceptual design of our proposed pedagogy. We then describe a study to examine how the intervention operationalizing the flare phase of the pedagogy supports students in expanding their problem and solution space.